More than 300 local singers will play their part in The Gathering Wave masterminded by the Music Pool. Ten adult and four primary school choirs have been practising their own parts and coming together for mass rehearsals for months. The event will also see the return of Denise Leigh, the soprano who came to fame after winning Channel; 4’s ‘Operatunity’.

The Gathering Wave also keeps up the Festival’s run of premieres with new five new pieces all written especially by locally based or connected composers, including one by Fran Pullen that shares its name with the concert.

Before the Gathering Wave the day will also see a lively programme of free music and entertainment on Castle Green and a last chance to see the Festival Players’ production of ‘The Merchant of Venice’ in the Bishop’s Palace Garden. Meanwhile at Belmont Abbey other local people and Festivalgoers will join a Gregorian Chant Workshop. We’ll all get a chance to hear what they’ve learned in the Cathedral at 5.30 when the participants will sing Vespers for the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, one of the Cathedral’s patron saints, with members of Opus Anglicanum.

So there’s still lots going on before the Festival ends and the Three Choirs ‘machine’ moves on to Gloucester for 2010 and to Worcester a year later. It’ll be back here in Hereford in 2012, the year of the London Olympics. I’m already looking forward to ‘Five Rings, Three Choirs and a Good Time’ and many people leaving the Cathedral last night, including lots of our overseas guests, promised to return in three years’ time, so I hope to see you there too!